Inside the Walls

The Emergency Department at Seattle Children’s provides exceptional care when a seriously ill or injured child needs immediate help. Starting this spring, we’ll also provide an exceptional environment in our new home on the first floor of Building Hope.

We’ve looked forward to this move for a long time. Our staff is an amazing team with a talent for meeting challenges, but our existing ED wasn’t built to accommodate the flood of patients coming through the door. To handle growing volume, we currently care for emergency patients in two separate spaces – an inconvenient and inefficient situation for families and staff alike. Read full post »

Nobody looks forward to visiting the Emergency Department, but when the need arises, families deserve a safe, timely and welcoming experience. Seattle Children’s will raise the bar this spring when our ED moves into the first floor of Building Hope.

The new ED increases capacity, expands the size of patient rooms and arranges the rooms around central work stations that improve staff visibility, teamwork and communication. But the physical changes are just the beginning. After years of planning and with input from families and staff, we’re improving the way patients and families flow through the ED and how caregivers respond to their needs. Read full post »

Building Hope is first and foremost a place of healing, but it’s also a canvas for artists to help us create a comforting and welcoming environment. As workers begin to put the finishing touches on the building, we’re pleased to share another example of the art featured throughout the facility.

Lab Partners of Oakland, California designed a series of wall murals for the elevator banks on each floor. The soothing scenes in their woodland designs take their cue from our new wayfinding system that divides our campus into four nature-inspired zones. Building Hope is in the Forest Zone.

Children leave a lot behind when they come to the hospital – school, friends and activities. Time drags and they feel bored and isolated. They and their families also have lots of questions about what to expect during their stay. GetWell Town is an interactive media system that uses the bedside TV to inform, educate and entertain patients and their families at the hospital. And it’s coming to Building Hope when the doors open this spring. Read full post »

As we complete the skybridge connecting our Building Hope expansion to rest of the hospital, certain spaces in the existing building must temporarily close as the skybridge is punched through on five levels. That includes part of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) containing seven beds. The problem is we can’t take so many beds out of service – not even temporarily – because the entire region depends on the PICU to care for kids who are fighting for their lives. The solution: move six beds into a new area dubbed PICU East. Read full post »

Cancer isn’t something that only happens to other people. I know because it happened to me. My name is Emma. I’m 19 and live in Seattle with my family. This fall, I’m beginning culinary classes at Seattle Central Community College, but four years ago, I was battling Hodgkin’s lymphoma at Seattle Children’s. Read full post »

Our Inside the Walls series continues with a look outside the walls of Building Hope, where we’re working to make it as convenient as possible for families, visitors and others to come and go – starting with adding a new elevator. The elevator will carry people one level from the building’s new inpatient parking area to the existing Giraffe entrance – which serves as the front door to the entire hospital. After Building Hope opens, we will remove the temporary vestibule and make some needed improvements to flow at that entrance. Read full post »

In this installment of Inside the Walls, we’d like to share some important details about the sky bridges that will connect five levels of Building Hope to the Train zone of the existing hospital. During sky bridge construction – beginning this October – parts of levels 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the Train zone will close as the bridges are punched through. Read full post »

We set many goals while planning our Building Hope expansion. One of the most important: delivering care as efficiently as possible. In the last post, CPI Guides Our Quest to Fight Waste, we shared some examples of how Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) methods are guiding our efforts to reduce waste and increase safety. Here are some other examples. Read full post »

Our vision hasn’t changed in more than 100 years. We believe all children should grow up free from illness and injury. What has changed is the world around us. Efficiency is more important than ever in today’s health care environment. That’s why Seattle Children’s is one of the first medical centers in the country to apply Continuous Performance Improvement (CPI) methods to the delivery of health care – including the design and operation of our Building Hope expansion.Read full post »

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Seattle Children’s provides healthcare for the special needs of children regardless of race, color, creed, national origin, religion, sex (gender), sexual orientation or disability. Financial assistance for medically necessary services is based on family income and hospital resources and is provided to children under age 21 whose primary residence is in Washington, Alaska, Montana or Idaho.